


Pieces

by NervousAsexual



Category: Nero Wolfe - Rex Stout
Genre: Canon-atypical violence, Just so you know what you're getting into, Medical Inaccuracies, No Context, Traumatic Brain Injury, Violence, Whump, for the first chapter, i make no apologies, is it time for self-indulgent nonsensical whump?, this may be out of character in spots but eh it was interesting to write, trick question. it is always time for self-indulgent nonsensical whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:34:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26220478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: How much can a man lose and still remain the same man?
Relationships: Archie Goodwin & Nero Wolfe
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

_he begged, you know._  
  
what? what did you say?  
  
 _goodwin. at the end. sure, he's about as tough as they come these days, but sooner or later they all beg._

get out.

_or what, nero? goodwin's not here to throw me out. he said you might try, though. said you don't take well to hearing the truth when it's not what you want to hear. that much he gave up willingly. i only had to break his hand for that. everything else took work, though. you should be proud of him for holding out as long as he did._

i said, get out of my office.

_do you want to see what's left of him?_

get out!

_he told me all about you. about this office. this is the painting with the peephole, isn't it? and that is where he and the others play cards. and that safe over there? the one that holds the emergency cash? he gave me the combination, the contents... once you get him going he just doesn't stop._

_he told me everything i wanted to know. everything and then some. it took some doing but your boy broke, nero._

_you don't believe me, do you? i could easily be lying, trying to rile you up--which he said isn't difficult to do. there's an easy way to find out, though. why don't i walk over to the safe and open it for you._

no.

_no? you don't want proof? ah, no, that makes sense. as long as you have no proof there's a possibility that i'm lying and goodwin's fine. but as soon as i open that safe that little hope goes right out the window, doesn't it.don't feel too badly. it's only human. you're doing the best for him in your own small way, aren't you?_

_does it help to know that when he begged it wasn't just for himself? he did that too. he begged me to stop and eventually he begged me to finish it. he also begged me not to hurt you. you train your boys well. i'd almost think he cares for you. 'you touch mister wolfe and i will...' that sort of thing, at the beginning of it, and then it was 'you can't hurt him.' by the end it was more 'i'll do whatever you want.' not in so many words, of course. touching, really._

_you're quiet, nero. that's not like you at all. what's on your mind?_

you asked if i wanted to see him.

_close. i asked if you wanted to see what is left. but yes. i would gladly take you to him. there is a car just down the street whenever you are ready._

there's no way he could be brought here, to me.

_believe me when i say you don't want that._

bring the car, then. i want to see him.


	2. Chapter 2

_self-service storage. abandoned. anything of value long since picked by scavengers._

_in the heart of the facility, a dimly lit unit, abandoned miscellany strewn about--a broken chair, a pair of mismatched golf clubs, a cigar box filled with ruined photographs. a tarpaulin stretched over the floor. in the middle of the tarpaulin, a body._

_nero wolfe's heart drops._

_bright fresh blood pools around the body. underneath, barely visible, darker, congealed blood. the body, face turned down against the pools of it, is half-contorted, half-curled into a fetal position. one arm is twisted behind the back, broken in several places. the other hand is swollen and bruised and close to the chest as if that will protect it. both legs are fractured, including a break that leaves the thigh bent at an impossible angle. the feet are bloodied. massacred in a way that raises bile to wolfe's throat._

_a hand shoves wolfe from behind and he stumbles, lands hard on his knees beside the body. he ignores the laughter from behind and lifts the face from the blood. beneath the swelling and broken bones, bruises, scrapes, and cuts, the body is unrecognizable. the hair matted against the broken skull--also unidentifiable. wrapped around the neck, however, is a tie that wolfe has seen before. there are other marks there, ligature marks, that do not match._

_there is a strip of cloth tied too tightly over the eyes and a handkerchief stuffed down the throat. wolfe carefully pulls the wadded red fabric free. the initials embroidered in the corner are expected. the letter a. the letter g._

_somehow, when the gag is removed, a sound comes from the body. a strained, shallow, exhausted rattle in the lungs. somehow despite the massive trauma there is still life here. for how long and at what cost is uncertain._

_as he pulls the cloth from the eyes wolfe gives the body a gentle shake. there is no response. there will never be a response._

_behind him there are gunshots. running footsteps. wolfe does not look back. even when the gun is pressed to the back of his neck he does not look._

_when the gunshot comes and the gun falls away, wolfe does not look._

_it is only when a man comes through that he glances up. the man enters the room, his face almost unrecognizable without the ever-present cigar. he pauses for a moment.  
_

goodwin? christ.

_the man goes no further but crouches beside the body, helping to shift it onto its side. the blood stains his hands and sleeves and trousers. his own kerchief, white, starched, clean, he uses to wipe the blood from the body's mouth and nose. the breathing continues somehow. there is a desperate, unconscious desire to survive. even this gravely wounded it--he?--tries to hold out._

_the one who did this to him was mistaken. it is not nero wolfe's training that kept and keeps him hanging on. there is no consciousness here. it is likely there will never be again. this force that refuses to let go is nothing wolfe could teach. it belongs entirely to archie goodwin._


	3. Chapter 3

_what's left of archie goodwin is scant. two scars, one on the back of the wrist, the other the upper arm. a half-remembered dream of running. a handful of words, stripped of context--germination, arsenic, notebook, coriander. the memory of whirling across a dance floor. most everything else is gone, not just stolen but obliterated._

the body left behind is still breathing, barely, through a damaged trachea. every breath is a gasp torn through blood and vomit. every breath sounds like the last.

perhaps the kindest thing would be to let him go. there is so very little left of what made him who he was, and even this barely alive state is a tremendous struggle.

each person explains to wolfe again and again. each doctor who files through, the police--cramer--all tell him the same. even fritz tells him, gently touching his arm as he serves the irish stew (another piece of archie goodwin that remains, but with nothing to tie it to his body), that perhaps this is not the best way.

the truth, each person says: even if the body can be made stable--drawing breaths, heart beating, healed bones and flesh--there will be nothing left that is archie. there will never be consciousness. the eyes will never meet his. it will be only an empty shell.

cramer thinks this is a misplaced guilt--what happened to him was never truly about archie but wolfe. fritz thinks it is remnants of loyalty, all that he can hold to. saul doesn't say what he thinks, just watches with sad dark eyes and finds work so that none of them will starve.

wolfe does not attempt to explain. whoever or whatever is left, even if it's just a body, has been fighting this entire time. whatever is here wants to live. nero wolfe will not let it fight alone.

when the blood is washed away, when the bruises begin to fade and the lacerations to heal, what is left does resemble archie goodwin, if only superficially. beneath the bruised lids are goodwin's sky-blue eyes. the hair is the same color, nearly the same texture. without the usual waxy pomade the latter appears slightly changed--sweat-dampened curls are visible along his hairline.

the bones knit slowly. the broken hand is kept flat but the other reflexively curls, and the newest addition to wolfe's schedule is one hour before morning orchid time and two after the evening session, all spent at the bedside, unfolding the fingers and pressing them flat against the bedclothes.

money is spent. the newest member of the household is a young man not much older than theodore, tasked with the myriad caregiving duties the body requires. he and fritz move the furniture in what was once archie's room, making room for a bed specially purchased from a hospital supplier. for the time being the body can be coaxed to swallow and nutrition comes in the form of mashed vegetables. a shame, fritz says. though his palate was unrefined archie had always been appreciative of the household cuisine. there are feeding tubes of the type used on polio-stricken children on the premises in case of regression.

similarly there is a complicated medical contraption kept in the wardrobe among archie's old clothes. it is unreasonable to expect unceasing strength from the body, and should it become necessary the ventilator can take over the breathing that was such a struggle before.

it is hard to believe that a person can be so thoroughly destroyed, that there is violence great enough to erase a man like this.

in a way this is still violence, orrie says, to force somebody to live this reality day in and day out. archie wouldn't have wanted this. wolfe is not so sure. this sort of tenacity is not endemic of the human body. whatever it is that keeps the body doggedly hanging on is one of the pieces of archie that were left behind.

perhaps they are all right. perhaps it is loyalty, guilt, some saccharine combination of the two, that keeps wolfe from releasing the body into state custody. perhaps as long as there is something in there that remains of archie goodwin nero wolfe will do for it what he had done for the man when he was whole.  
it doesn't matter. no one knows better than wolfe that intent is meaningless.

there are those who say that it is noble of wolfe to bring him home to die. in truth there is nothing noble at all. is survival noble? no. this is no novel, where a princess sleeps forever in a high tower, always beautiful, always with the blush of life in her cheeks. this is ugly. this is the body of a formerly strong, witty man, reduced to the basest of human instinct. it is soiled bedding. it is infected lungs. it is the sickening stench of bedsores. wolfe has seen far more death than any man should--this is partially why he employs others to go out to do the investigating--and the thought of what little life remains fading away under his roof brings despair up into his throat, but he has seen the body so badly massacred that there should have been no life left and still it hung on. death may still come to this house, but it will have to fight for what it takes.

theodore comes down from the orchid room from time to time, though he never visits the body alone. he helps with some of the easier caretaking--for a while after the worst of the bruising has gone down he brings a tin of murray's superior pomade and slicks back the hair. the resemblance to archie is much stronger after that, but murray's is difficult to wash out and ultimately the young man who does the caretaking asks theodore not to bring anymore.

theodore apologizes. he only wanted to help. he'd thought that his orchid experience would help, because this is not unlike orchid care. there is much interpretation. there is a delicate balance and a patient that cannot verbalize what is needed, or at least not well. from time to time there are moans or slight shifting and the eyes move behind the lids. theodore is pleased at this--he's some degree of conscious.

no one tells him the truth, which is that these are not purposeful. there is no recognition of anything, not even pain. the caretaker will periodically pinch the skin on the back of the hand (checking to be sure hydration is adequate, he says) and though the body grows slightly tense and the breathing comes quicker the hand is never drawn back. the world outside cannot garner a response.

even so, wolfe comes in daily for his three hours of visitation. he brings novels and reads them aloud, pretending, for his own sake, that one of the pieces of archie goodwin that remains is his fondness for absurd and tasteless gothic literature. wolfe has no skill and little experience reading aloud, but there is something about the act that allows one to forget the real world.

it is during the evening session that it happens. wolfe is reading aloud but skimming some lines ahead, looking for a logical stopping point before putting _the castle of wolfenbach_ away for the night. the caretaker has the night off and a man hired from the hospice is down in the front room, only a shout or a call away if needed. thus far the night has been quiet. this is quite a gift--for the last few days the body has been restless. only a day prior there had been tears, and no way of confirming if the tears were a response to pain. crying is something nero wolfe loathes. last night's bout almost dragged him down as well.

in the novel the heroine and her uncle with the wandering hands are traveling to germany. corsairs are bearing down on them. the solution invented by the uncle is to stab the both of them. wolfe hates this sort of unearned drama. it would be irksome enough if he were reading to archie, being constantly assailed with wry remarks and sarcastic comments, but this feels like bailing water out of a half-sunken ship with a saucepan. and what good has it done? there is no indication that whatever is left hears or understands. no, wolfe is done with this book.

he slams the book shut and throws it down on the bedside table. the body in bed flinches. wolfe does not believe in coincidences, but he knows that is all this can be. he glances up at the body and sees that the head has tilted toward him and the eyes are open.

this is not the first time. the body has shown some degree of wakefulness from time to time, though no actual awareness. one eye is opened, wide enough for the sky blue of the iris to be visible, and the other is barely cracked. it is upsetting, bordering on infuriating. it is tiring. wolfe does not have the energy to do this. not tonight.

he stands. he walks away. and when he gets to the door he finds he has to look back. he is immediately tense. the eyes have followed him.

he walks back to the bed. the eyes follow him. they aren't terribly alert, and it seems to be a strain to focus, but they follow him.

_archie?_

there is a moment of no reaction, and then wolfe sees it.

he sees the small, lopsided smile that hovers for a fraction of a second on the familiar face.

there will be no miracles. damage done is damage done, and whatever is left behind will never be archie goodwin in the way he once existed. the snarky banter might not return. what is left may never be able to speak, or to run investigations or dance or irritate wolfe with endless prods to work. but there is something left. there is something here, and it is worth fighting for.


	4. Chapter 4

as the body starts to spend more and more time awake it grows more and more restless. it keeps trying to climb out of bed but doesn't have the strength to actually stand. once it bumps into wolfe as he's reading aloud, nearly falls to the floor, but somehow wolfe gets an arm around the waist and catches it and for a moment it seems like the body just relaxes against him. when he shouts for the caregiver it just gives a soft sighing moan and doesn't move.

_i'm so sorry, mr. wolfe,_ the boy says, prying the body off him--it grows stiff at the touch. _i'll have to see about an increase in the barbital._

this is common, wolfe knows. whoever or whatever is here is consistently more irritable when the sun goes down and what natural light it gets from archie's window is gone. to some degree the darkness must play into its confusion, but the increased waking hours are no doubt tiring to one who has been sleeping twenty hours or more a day. the headlong rush into things it may not be prepared for is certainly a characteristic it shares with archie, but to some degree it is simply human nature. no doubt it overestimates its own capabilities.

with assistance it has begun eating on its own. it usually needs pressing to be able to string actions together--it can reliably hold a spoon but needs prompting to scoop up the mashed cauliflower fritz has made, and once it has that down it struggles to bring the food to its mouth. there appears to have been some loss of fine motor control, which is to be expected after that level of trauma, but it knows archie was able to do these things and when it struggles it quickly becomes upset.

_can you blame him?_ fritz asks. _one can only get so much enjoyment out of cauliflower._

wolfe is inclined to agree with him that it is growing weary of the mashed vegetables. during his own dinner in the dining room wolfe sometimes hears a loud clatter from upstairs--if the boy they hired for caretaking is not ever vigilant it will shove the bowl to the floor. wolfe debates whether or not that would be something archie would do.

between the pieces of archie that are left behind are new traits scattered here and there. it seems to be calmed by touch in a way archie hadn't been; the way it fell against wolfe that night notwithstanding, it leans into the caretaker when he is washing its face or combing out the hair that is just beginning to grow back. it also cries, quite easily, in fact. before this wolfe cannot recall a single time he witnessed archie in tears, but this one cries from frustration when it is unable to correctly perform a task, from exhaustion if it is kept from the rest it so desperately needs, from pain on the bad days. it is difficult to tell if this is truly a personality change or if the trauma erased the expectation of independence, or if it is just too tired to worry about its pride.

the tears are difficult. wolfe hates weeping on principle, and these tears are an unpleasant reminder of the injuries that are less physically obvious these days. sometimes it takes what seems an alarming amount of morphine to reach a baseline where it can even catch a few restless hours of sleep. when he hears it crying at night wolfe lies awake and wonders what is causing its unbearable pain tonight. is it the shattered bones in its hands? the broken femur? the fractured skull? or is it another kind of pain--memories of what has happened, or grief for what was lost? there is no way to ask. though it tries to speak its words are rarely intelligible, and even when they are they make no sense. the caretaker asks if it is still hungry and it responds with something that sounds like _book_. wolfe reads another gothic novel to it and it says, barely seeming aware of itself, _four_ or _floor_ or perhaps _tore_. the voice is not recognizably archie's.

the caretaker suggests, hesitantly, that perhaps the body needs more than this. certainly it needs more in the way of caregiving. one solitary caretaker can only watch so much before needing rest, but the body is so stubbornly insistent on getting out of bed that constant supervision is required.

_if he falls_ , the caretaker says in little more than a whisper, _he will more than likely hurt himself. he could lose the progress he has made already. he could die._

the other option is restraints. wolfe outright refuses. he is unsure how much the body remembers from before, but if there is any risk this will stir up memories of the torture archie endured it is unacceptable.

at night, with or without the body crying down the hall, wolfe remembers that dimly lit shed. he remembers how still the body was--and it was only a body by this time; he has no way of knowing what was the final act that shattered archie into the pieces that are left behind, but he knows that it had already come before his arrival--and he remembers the too-tight blindfold, the tie knotted around the neck, the handkerchief soaked in blood and bile and who knew what else jammed down the throat. the ligature marks on the wrists and ankles had not been immediately apparent; the blood and bruising effectively hid them.

_he begged_ , the voice in the darkness whispers. _he gave me what i wanted to know._

wolfe tries to drown the voice in music played softly. he tries to wall it out with books.

_it took some doing but your boy broke, nero._

the second caretaker is hired, a drain on what little income saul finds for them but a necessity. this one is older, better trained. he massages the stiff muscles in the body's legs and shoulders and it groans with relief, and afterward sleep seems to come easier. he speaks to the body, keeping up a one-sided conversation, calling it _mr. goodwin._ if he finds the house that nero wolfe keeps to be strange he keeps it to himself. nights grow a little easier under his watch. meals remain hit or miss.

at the end of the week wolfe opens the safe to fetch the paychecks, one of archie's jobs now left unfilled. as he enters the combination it occurs to him that archie will never know the combination again. even if the body somehow held onto the combination through everything, the fact that he'd given it required a changing of the lock.

it is difficult, sometimes, to keep his temper on that issue. part of him remains furious, at archie, alternately for ultimately breaking under torture and for not simply giving up the information before it came to this; at himself, for having that anger toward a man who had remained loyal to him to the end-- _he begged for you, too_ \--even when it cost him everything; more than anything else at the men who did this to him. then there are the common frustrations. perhaps saul doesn't find the answers he wants. perhaps fritz must delay dinner for a few minutes. perhaps a favored orchid wilts for no discernible reason or cramer telephones to snap at him over a case or the night is long and the body cries. this is not how it was supposed to be. none of this is satisfactory.

his lack of proper rest only strengthens the irritability. more than once his immediate thought to the pained wails echoing in the hall is to crush a pillow over the face and put an end to all their suffering. if not that he wishes that the body had died the night he found it in that pool of blood. if neither of those he listens to the caretaker try to soothe the body and thinks, _just give him what he wants. give him the morphine._ perhaps it is addicting, but what of it? what else does the body have left? what more could anything or anyone take from it?

_at this stage he is not reacting proportionally to the pain_ , the caretaker says. _if he is in pain it is less intense than it sounds._

that is not as comforting as they seem to think it is.

one night he comes down from the flower room with a _Brassavola_ , still in its pot, its pale heart-shaped leaves spilling fragrance, and he sets it on the table beside the bed. the body, which has spent most of the day restless and in pain or tears or both, looks toward him but continues to weep. wolfe takes his usual seat and opens the book and begins to read "the old nurse's tale."

the body is having none of that. it struggles to climb out of bed and manages to gain its footing, but as always it lacks the strength to stand on its own. its knees fold and it falls to the floor. wolfe is only just quick enough to keep its head from striking the ground.

_where is it that you think you are going?_ he snaps at it, but the body, head pressed against his belly, does not respond. it tries to stand again but is unable to rise. it gets one arm partially around wolfe's waist and leans against him, resting, or perhaps trying to gather its strength. there is something unsettling to the movement--he cannot recall the last time archie physically touched him--but something reassuring as well. it holds to him as if he's a port in a storm.

unable to get the body back to its feet, wolfe manhandles it down until it is lying flat on the floor. it reaches for him. there is nothing he can do for it. he shouts for the caretaker.

the older caretaker responds. he is the one who gets the body back into bed and leaves it clutching fistfuls of the bedclothes as he fetches the barbital.

_home_ , it mumbles. it twists its head back and forth on the pillow, adding new tangles to the sweat-slicked curls in its hair. _please. home?_

_you are home_ , wolfe tells it. _in_ his _home, anyway._

it gives no indication of understanding. it reaches out for him and though he very much doesn't want to wolfe moves his chair closer to the bedside.

the caretaker returns with a small amount of barbital and speaks soothingly to the body. he explains what he is doing-- _mr. goodwin, this is just to make you feel a little better, you need to get some rest_ \--but the body resists. one hand releases the blankets and reaches out. whatever its intention is, it is not willing. wolfe takes the hand firmly in his own and pulls it back to the bed. the eyes turn to him, wide with surprise, and the caretaker slips the pill into its mouth and holds the head gently but firmly until it finally swallows. the caretaker pats its shoulder lightly. _i'm sorry, mr. goodwin. i know it's not what you wanted._ but the eyes are set on wolfe.

there's fear in the eyes. these are not archie's eyes.

_wolfe?_

this is not archie.

_please_

there isn't enough left to be archie. too many of the things that made him who he was have been erased.

_take me home?_

for this to be something, someone, new is tolerable, but the idea that archie can have changed so drastically is repugnant.

_god, please..._

archie goodwin died on the floor of that shed. he is free of what they did to him.

the body tries again to get up. the caretaker gently presses him back to the mattress. _you need to lie still. it's going to take a minute for the barbital to work and we don't want you to fall again, do we?_

it is trembling. it... he... struggles to lift the head off the pillow. with a sharp yank wolfe pulls his chair parallel to the bed and places his free hand on the forehead. it raises the other hand and paws at wolfe's as if to pull it away but manages to hook the fingers over wolfe's hand and just holds it there. the eyes are trying to look into wolfe's. these aren't archie's eyes. they only look like his.

the other hand squeezes wolfe's fingers. the eyes roam, unable to focus on anything. it tries to speak again but between the drugs and the strain of the day the words are tangled nonsense. it sounds almost like archie, but it isn't. wolfe cannot let himself believe that.

whatever is here has fought, is still fighting, never stopped fighting. that part is archie. the way it looks at him sometimes, like it's about to question him, that part is archie. the eyes, the hair, even the smile, that's all archie, but this isn't. the pain isn't. archie is gone, he doesn't feel pain anymore, he's dead and wolfe has knelt in the blood that proves it.

he is sorry that whatever this is has to live like this, but he is grateful that archie does not.

_it's okay,_ the caretaker says, as if he's unaware of how unbelievably tragic this is. _you're tired. i know. it's been a very long day,_ he adds to wolfe.

as minutes go by the body grows more and more still. the head lolls just a little under wolfe's hand. the voice tries once more to speak and can muster nothing intelligible. it lets go of wolfe's hand. its eyes are no longer restless.

this is not archie goodwin. wolfe brushes a thumb across the forehead. archie would not have allowed that.

the caretaker sits down hard in his own nearby chair. he makes a small sound in his throat. exhaustion. tears.

this can't be archie, because no one can change this much. no one.

again the body makes one last attempt at raising itself. there's somewhere it wants to go but there's no way to know where. it looks at wolfe like it's pleading and he doesn't know why.

home. where is home? what does that mean to what's left behind? this is archie's room; if it should think of anything as home... downstairs? the office, the kitchen, the front hall he constantly ferried clients through? or maybe it has somehow regressed to childhood, that would make sense, and it wants to go back to wherever archie lived as a boy.

or perhaps it doesn't mean 'home' in a physical sense at all. maybe this is its way of telling wolfe that it can't fight anymore.

those blue eyes of archie's drift closed. his head is heavy against wolfe's hand.

_it doesn't mean anything, you know._

wolfe turns to the caretaker. _what doesn't?_

_what he's been saying. about going home. that's just how it is with people who've been hurt this bad. he can't articulate what he needs and it all comes out as 'home._ '

the body--archie's body--is still but for the tired, huffing breaths.

_sometimes they ask for their mother._

sadder still.

_he just wants us to make him feel better. it'll happen less often as he improves._

_how can it?_ every time he closes his eyes wolfe can see the body, what should have been a corpse, broken and crushed and shattered. _how can it... how can he possibly improve from what happened?_

the caretaker laces his fingers and rests his chin against them. his own eyes are red and damp. _look at how much he's improved already. simon told me that when you first brought him here he wasn't conscious at all. he can speak now, mr. wolfe. he can look at you and call you by name and even if he can't actually walk he's damned sure going to try. that is... that is progress people pray for._

perhaps it had been easier when there was no awareness. perhaps it was easier on both of them. _archie isn't ever coming back._

_what do you mean?_ the caretaker rubs at his eyes with a knuckle. _he's right here. you're touching him._

_no. i don't know who this is, but he's not archie. he will never be archie. he can't._ wolfe takes his hand from the forehead and sits back in his chair. _it's impossible to ever get him back to what he was._

_maybe. but that doesn't mean he isn't still here._

_how much can one man lose and remain the same man?_ wolfe snaps. _he isn't. he's gone.  
_

the caretaker just blinks at him.

_then why are you doing all this?_ he asks at last.

wolfe has no answer.

they sit in silence for a while. downstairs the night caretaker rings the doorbell and fritz answers.

_i don't want to bite the hand that feeds. what you're doing for mr. goodwin is an amazing thing--many people wouldn't do this for their own families, let alone an employee. you didn't have to take over his care, but you did. surely you wouldn't have done that for a stranger?_

wolfe turns away in his chair.

_i never met mr. goodwin before all this. it's a shame. he sounds like quite a character._

_true._

_but i can't say i never met him at all. i've talked to him every day for months now._

_he isn't..._ wolfe's voice trails away.

_people change all the time, mr. wolfe. after all that's happened, why shouldn't he?_

but that is still a loss. everything archie was and everything he could be was ended by this. this isn't a change; it's a massacre. _he will never be the person he was before._

_no,_ the caretaker agrees. _and that's sad. that's... that's something to grieve over. but it doesn't change the fact of what's happening right now. changed or not, he's still here._

for so long he's thought that the idea of archie being dead was kinder, that it was better for all of them that he hadn't survived. now he finds that the idea of the archie he has lost, the man he would have been in the future if nothing had changed, is more heartbreaking still. it's a terrible loss, and yet...

_i know it's always hard to reconcile the person he was, the person he is, and the person he could have been. it's been like this in every household i've worked._

...and yet the idea of what he could have been is nothing. that man never existed. how do you mourn someone you have never met?

_it's all confusing and sad and awful. but no matter what he's lost he won't stop being who he is. i mean, it's a good question. 'how much can one man lose...' and you're right. he has lost a lot. maybe he's not the man you knew before, but he doesn't seem to let it stop him._

it all sounds so laughable, but wolfe looks at the body in the bed--at archie's body--at archie--and can't say for certain that he has any better answer. he turns to the caretaker just as the evening replacement comes rushing up the steps.

_sorry i'm late._ the young man huffs. and puffs. _i could not for the life of me get a cab._ he glances over at archie, who is still motionless, still quiet, still sleeping. _looks like it's been a quiet night, though._

he's wrong, wolfe thinks to himself, but he's correct. archie has done nothing he hasn't done a hundred times since this began. all the same, to wolfe it feels very, very different.


End file.
